1953: switzerland and portugal Apr 20, 2020

Many times, countries are named after the majority of the people who inhabit it like Slovakia, Kazakhstan, or Israel, but not always. In the case, of Switzerland or Portugal, both of these countries got their respective names from smaller cities within them, neither of which happen to be the national capital. 'Switzerland' comes from the town 'Schwyz', after a union between it and two other areas, Uri and Unterwalden, to form the Eidgenossenschaft (Confederacy), but the demonym 'Eidgenosse' did not catch on elsewhere as much as the older 'Schwytzer', and that stuck around into the formation of 'Switzerland'. Portugal's etymology is less clear, though it was certainly named for one of the seaports ('portus' in Latin), it is unclear which; at any rate, it isn't Lisbon, and one leading theory suggests it was the Roman Portus Cale named after the Gauls, which is nowadays Porto.

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